Conceptual Roles of Evolvability across Evolutionary Biology: Between Diversity and Unification

Abstract

Biologists and phi los o phers have noted the diversity of interpretations of evolvability in con temporary evolutionary research.Dif fer ent clusters of research identified by co-citation patterns or shared methodological orientation sometimes concentrate on distinct conceptions of evolvability.We examine five dif fer ent activities where the notion of evolvability plays conceptual roles in evolutionary biological investigation: setting a research agenda, characterization, explanation, prediction, and control.Our analy sis of representative examples demonstrates how dif fer ent conceptual roles of evolvability are quasi-independent and yet exhibit impor tant relationships across scientific activities.It also provides resources to detail two distinct strategies for how evolvability can help synthesize disparate areas of research and thereby potentially serve as a unifying concept in evolutionary biology.

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